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The main contemporary accounts relating to Krak des Chevaliers are of Muslim origin and tend to emphasize Muslim success while overlooking setbacks against the Crusaders although they suggest that the Knights Hospitaller forced the settlements of Hama and Homs to pay tribute to the Order . This situation lasted as long as Saladin 's successors warred between themselves . The proximity of Krak des Chevaliers to Muslim territories allowed it to take on an offensive role , acting as a base from which neighboring areas could be attacked . By 1203 the garrison were making raids on <unk> ( which was under Muslim control ) and Hama , and in 1207 and 1208 the castle 's soldiers took part in an attack on Homs . Krak des Chevaliers acted as a base for expeditions to Hama in 1230 and 1233 after the amir refused to pay tribute . The former was unsuccessful , but the 1233 expedition was a show of force that demonstrated the importance of Krak des Chevaliers .
In the 1250s , the fortunes of the Hospitallers at Krak des Chevaliers took a turn for the worse . A Muslim army estimated to number 10 @,@ 000 men ravaged the countryside around the castle in 1252 after which the Order 's finances declined sharply . In 1268 Master Hugh Revel complained that the area , previously home to around 10 @,@ 000 people , now stood deserted and that the Order 's property in the Kingdom of Jerusalem produced little income . He also noted that by this point there were only 300 of the Order 's brethren left in the east . On the Muslim side , in 1260 Baibars became Sultan of Egypt , following his overthrow of the incumbent ruler Qutuz , and went on to unite Egypt and Syria . As a result , Muslim settlements that had previously paid tribute to the Hospitallers at Krak des Chevaliers no longer felt intimidated into doing so .
Baibars ventured into the area around Krak des Chevaliers in 1270 and allowed his men to graze their animals on the fields around the castle . When he received news that year of the Eighth Crusade led by King Louis IX of France , Baibars left for Cairo to avoid a confrontation . After Louis died in 1271 Baibars returned to deal with Krak des Chevaliers . Before he marched on the castle the Sultan captured the smaller castles in the area , including Chastel Blanc . On 3 March , Baibars ' army arrived at Krak des Chevaliers . By the time the Sultan appeared on the scene , the castle may already have been blockaded by Mamluk forces for several days . Of the three Arabic accounts of the siege only one was contemporary , that of Ibn Shaddad , although he was not present at the siege . Peasants who lived in the area had fled to the castle for safety and were kept in the outer ward . As soon as Baibars arrived he erected mangonels , powerful siege weapons which he would later turn on the castle . In a probable reference to a walled suburb outside the castle 's entrance , Ibn Shaddad records that two days later the first line of defences fell to the besiegers .
Rain interrupted the siege , but on 21 March , immediately south of Krak des Chevaliers , <unk> 's forces captured a triangular outwork possibly defended by a timber palisade . On 29 March , the attackers undermined a tower in the southwest corner causing it to collapse whereupon Baibars ' army attacked through the breach . In the outer ward they encountered the peasants who had sought refuge in the castle . Though the outer ward had fallen , with a handful of the garrison killed in the process , the Crusaders retreated to the more formidable inner ward . After a lull of ten days , the besiegers conveyed a letter to the garrison , supposedly from the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller in Tripoli , which granted permission for them to surrender . Although the letter was a forgery , the garrison capitulated and the Sultan spared their lives . The new owners of the castle undertook repairs , focused mainly on the outer ward . The Hospitaller chapel was converted to a mosque and two mihrabs were added to the interior .
= = Later history = =
After the Franks were driven from the Holy Land in 1291 , European familiarity with the castles of the Crusades declined . It was not until the 19th century that interest in these buildings was renewed , so there are no detailed plans from before 1837 . Guillaume Rey was the first European researcher to scientifically study Crusader castles in the Holy Land . In 1871 he published the work Etudes sur les monuments de l 'architecture militaire des <unk> en Syrie et dans l <unk> de <unk> ; it included plans and drawings of the major Crusader castles in Syria , including Krak des Chevaliers . In some instances his drawings were inaccurate , however for Krak des <unk> they record features which have since been lost .
Paul Deschamps visited the castle in February 1927 . Since Rey had visited in the 19th century a village of 500 people had been established within the castle . Renewed inhabitation had damaged the site : underground vaults had been used as rubbish tips and in some places the battlements had been destroyed . Deschamps and fellow architect François Anus attempted to clear some of the detritus ; General Maurice Gamelin assigned 60 Alawite soldiers to help . Deschamps left in March 1927 , and work resumed when he returned two years later . The culmination of <unk> 's work at the castle was the publication of Les Châteaux des <unk> en Terre Sainte I : le Crac des Chevaliers in 1934 , with detailed plans by Anus . The survey has been widely praised , described as " brilliant and exhaustive " by military historian D. J. Cathcart King in 1949 and " perhaps the finest account of the archaeology and history of a single medieval castle ever written " by historian Hugh Kennedy in 1994 .
As early as 1929 there were suggestions that the castle should be taken under French control . On 16 November 1933 Krak des Chevaliers was given into the control of the French state , and cared for by the Académie des Beaux @-@ Arts . The villagers were moved and paid F1 million between them in compensation . Over the following two years a programme of cleaning and restoration was carried out by a force of 120 workers . Once finished , Krak des Chevaliers was one of the key tourist attractions in the French Levant . Pierre <unk> , who had undertaken similar work at the Tower of the Lions and the two castles at Sidon , <unk> the work . Despite the restoration , no archaeological excavations were carried out . The French Mandate of Syria and Lebanon , which had been established in 1920 , ended in 1946 with the declaration of Syrian independence . The castle was made a World Heritage Site by UNESCO , along with Qal ’ at Salah El @-@ Din , in 2006 , and is owned by the Syrian government .
Several of the castle 's former residents built their houses outside the fortress and a village called al @-@ Husn has since developed . Many of the al @-@ Husn 's roughly 9 @,@ 000 Muslim residents benefit economically from the tourism generated by the site .
= = = Syrian Civil War = = =
During the Syrian Civil War which began in 2011 , UNESCO voiced concerns that the war might lead to the damage of important cultural sites such as Krak des Chevaliers . It has been reported that the castle was shelled in August 2012 by the Syrian Arab Army , and the Crusader chapel has been damaged . The castle was reported to have been damaged in July 2013 by an airstrike during the Siege of Homs , and once more on the 18th of August 2013 it was clearly damaged yet the amount of destruction is unknown . The Syrian Arab Army recaptured the castle and the village of al @-@ <unk> from rebel forces on March 20 , 2014 , although the extent of damage from earlier mortar hits remained unclear .
= = Architecture = =
Writing in the early 20th century , T. E. Lawrence , popularly known as Lawrence of Arabia , remarked that Krak des Chevaliers was " perhaps the best preserved and most wholly admirable castle in the world , [ a castle which ] forms a fitting commentary on any account of the Crusading buildings of Syria " . Castles in Europe provided lordly accommodation for their owners and were centers of administration ; in the Levant the need for defence was paramount and was reflected in castle design . Kennedy suggests that " The castle scientifically designed as a fighting machine surely reached its apogee in great buildings like Margat and Crac des Chevaliers . "
Krak des Chevaliers can be classified both as a spur castle , due to its site , and after the 13th @-@ century expansion a fully developed concentric castle . It was similar in size and layout to Vadum Jacob , a Crusader castle built in the late 1170s . Margat has also been cited as Krak des Chevaliers ' sister castle . The main building material at Krak des Chevaliers was limestone ; the ashlar facing is so fine that the mortar is barely noticeable . Outside the castle 's entrance was a " walled suburb " known as a <unk> , no trace of which remains . To the south of the outer ward was a triangular outwork and the Crusaders may have intended to build stone walls and towers around it . It is unknown how it was defended at the time of the 1271 siege , though it has been suggested it was surrounded by a timber palisade . South of the castle the spur on which it stands is connected to the next hill , so that siege engines can approach on level ground . The inner defences are strongest at this point , with a cluster of towers connected by a thick wall .
= = = Inner ward = = =
Between 1142 and 1170 the Knights Hospitaller undertook a building programme on the site . The castle was defended by a stone curtain wall studded with square towers which projected slightly . The main entrance was between two towers on the eastern side , and there was a postern gate in the northwest tower . At the center was a courtyard surrounded by vaulted chambers . The lay of the land dictated the castle 's irregular shape . A site with natural defences was a typical location for Crusader castles and steep slopes provided Krak des Chevaliers with defences on all sides bar one , where the castle 's defences were concentrated . This phase of building was incorporated into the later castle 's construction .
When Krak des Chevaliers was remodelled in the 13th century , new walls surrounding the inner court were built . They followed the earlier walls , with a narrow gap between them in the west and south which was turned into a gallery from which defenders could unleash missiles . In this area , the walls were supported by a steeply sloping glacis which provided additional protection against both siege weapons and earthquakes . Four large , round towers project vertically from the glacis ; they were used as accommodation for the Knights of the garrison , about 60 at its peak . The southwest tower was designed to house the rooms of the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller . Though the defences which once crested the walls of the inner wards no longer survive in most places , it seems that they did not extend for the entire circuit . Machicolations were absent from the southern face . The area between the inner court and the outer walls was narrow and not used for accommodation . In the east , where the defences were weakest , there was an open cistern filled by an aqueduct . It acted both as a moat and water supply for the castle .
At the north end of the small courtyard is a chapel and at the southern end is an esplanade . The esplanade is raised above the rest of the courtyard ; the vaulted area beneath it would have provided storage and could have acted as stabling and shelter from missiles . Lining the west of the courtyard is the hall of the Knights . Though probably first built in the 12th century , the interior dates from the 13th @-@ century remodelling . The tracery and delicate decoration is a sophisticated example of Gothic architecture , probably dating from the 1230s .
= = = Chapel = = =
The current chapel was probably built to replace the one destroyed by an earthquake in 1170 . Only the east end of the original chapel , which housed the apse , and a small part of the south wall survive from the original chapel . The later chapel had a barrel vault and an uncomplicated apse ; its design would have been considered outmoded by contemporary standards in France , but bears similarities to that built around 1186 at Margat . It was divided into three roughly equal bays . A cornice runs round the chapel at the point where the vault ends and the wall begins . Oriented roughly east to west , it was 21 @.@ 5 metres ( 71 ft ) long and 8 @.@ 5 metres ( 28 ft ) wide with the main entrance from the west and a second smaller one in the north wall . When the castle was remodelled in the early 13th century , the entrance was moved to the south wall . The chapel was lit by windows above the cornice , one at the west end , one on either side of the east bay , and one on the south side of the central bay , and the apse at the east end had a large window . In 1935 a second chapel was discovered outside the castle 's main entrance , however it no longer survives .
= = = Outer ward = = =
The second phase of building work undertaken by the Hospitallers began in the early 13th century and lasted decades . The outer walls were built in the last major construction on the site , lending the Krak des Chevaliers its current appearance . Standing 9 metres ( 30 ft ) high , the outer circuit had towers that projected strongly from the wall . While the towers of the inner court had a square plan and did not project far beyond the wall , the towers of the 13th @-@ century outer walls were rounded . This design was new and even contemporary Templar castles did not have rounded towers . The technique was developed at Château Gaillard in France by Richard the Lionheart between 1196 and 1198 . The extension to the southeast is of lesser quality than the rest of the circuit and was built at an unknown date . Probably around the 1250s a postern was added to the north wall .
Arrow slits in the walls and towers were distributed to minimize the amount of dead ground around the castle . Machicolations crowned the walls , offering defenders a way to hurl projectiles towards enemies at the foot of the wall . They were so cramped archers would have had to crouch inside them . The box machicolations were unusual : those at Krak des Chevaliers were more complex that those at Saône or Margat and there were no comparable features amongst Crusader castles . However , they bore similarities to Muslim work , such as the contemporary defences at the Citadel of Aleppo . It is unclear which side imitated the other , as the date they were added to Krak des Chevaliers is unknown , but it does provide evidence for the diffusion of military ideas between the Muslim and Christian armies . These defences were accessed by a wall @-@ walk known as a chemin de ronde . In the opinion of historian Hugh Kennedy the defences of the outer wall were " the most elaborate and developed anywhere in the Latin east ... the whole structure is a brilliantly designed and superbly built fighting machine " .
When the outer walls were built in the 13th century the main entrance was enhanced . A vaulted corridor led uphill from the outer gate in the northeast . The corridor made a hairpin turn halfway along its length , making it an example of a bent entrance . Bent entrances were a Byzantine innovation , but that at Krak des Chevaliers was a particularly complex example . It extended for 137 metres ( 450 ft ) , and along its length were murder @-@ holes which allowed defenders to shower attackers with missiles . Anyone going straight ahead rather than following the hairpin turn would emerge in the area between the castle 's two circuits of walls . To access the inner ward , the passage had to be followed round .
= = = Frescoes = = =
Despite its predominantly military character , the castle is one of the few sites where Crusader art ( in the form of frescoes ) has been preserved . In 1935 , 1955 , and 1978 medieval frescoes were discovered within Krak des Chevaliers after later plaster and white @-@ wash had decayed . The frescos were painted on the interior and exterior of the main chapel and the chapel outside the main entrance , which no longer survives . Writing in 1982 , historian Jaroslav <unk> noted that at the time there had been little investigation of Crusader frescoes that would provide a comparison for the fragmentary remains found at Krak des Chevaliers . Those in the chapel were painted on the masonry from the 1170 – 1202 rebuild . Mold , smoke , and moisture have made it difficult to preserve the frescoes . The fragmentary nature of the red and blue frescoes inside the chapel means they are difficult to assess . The one on the exterior of the chapel depicted the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple .
= The Importance of Being Earnest =
The Importance of Being Earnest , A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde . First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James 's Theatre in London , it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personæ to escape burdensome social obligations . Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London , the play 's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage , and the resulting satire of Victorian ways . Contemporary reviews all praised the play 's humour , though some were cautious about its explicit lack of social messages , while others foresaw the modern consensus that it was the culmination of Wilde 's artistic career so far . Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde 's most enduringly popular play .
The successful opening night marked the climax of Wilde 's career but also heralded his downfall . The Marquess of Queensberry , whose son Lord Alfred Douglas was Wilde 's lover , planned to present the writer with a bouquet of rotten vegetables and disrupt the show . Wilde was tipped off and Queensberry was refused admission . Soon afterwards their feud came to a climax in court , where Wilde 's homosexual double life was revealed to the Victorian public and he was eventually sentenced to imprisonment . His notoriety caused the play , despite its early success , to be closed after 86 performances . After his release , he published the play from exile in Paris , but he wrote no further comic or dramatic work .
The Importance of Being Earnest has been revived many times since its premiere . It has been adapted for the cinema on three occasions . In The Importance of Being Earnest ( 1952 ) , Dame Edith Evans reprised her celebrated interpretation of Lady Bracknell ; The Importance of Being Earnest ( 1992 ) by Kurt Baker used an all @-@ black cast ; and Oliver Parker 's The Importance of Being Earnest ( 2002 ) incorporated some of Wilde 's original material cut during the preparation of the original stage production .
= = Composition = =
After the success of Wilde 's plays Lady Windermere 's Fan and A Woman of No Importance , Wilde 's producers urged him to write further plays . In July 1894 he mooted his idea for The Importance of Being Earnest to George Alexander , the actor @-@ manager of the St James 's Theatre . Wilde spent the summer with his family at Worthing , where he wrote the play quickly in August . His fame now at its peak , he used the working title Lady Lancing to avoid pre @-@ emptive speculation of its content . Many names and ideas in the play were borrowed from people or places the author had known ; Lady Queensberry , Lord Alfred Douglas 's mother , for example , lived at Bracknell . There is widespread agreement among Wilde scholars that the most important influence on the play was W. S. Gilbert 's 1877 farce Engaged ; Wilde borrowed from Gilbert not only several incidents but , in Russell Jackson 's phrase " the gravity of tone demanded by Gilbert of his actors " .
Wilde continually revised the text over the next months : no line was left untouched , and " in a play so economical with its language and effects , [ the revisions ] had serious consequences " . Sos <unk> describes Wilde 's revisions as a refined art at work : the earliest , longest handwritten drafts of the play labour over farcical incidents , broad puns , nonsense dialogue and conventional comic turns . In revising as he did , " Wilde transformed standard nonsense into the more systemic and disconcerting illogicality which characterises Earnest 's dialogue " . Richard Ellmann argues that Wilde had reached his artistic maturity and wrote this work more surely and rapidly than before .
Wilde hesitated about submitting the script to Alexander , worrying that it might be unsuitable for the St James 's Theatre , whose typical repertoire was relatively serious , and explaining that it had been written in response to a request for a play " with no real serious interest " . When Henry James 's Guy <unk> failed , Alexander turned to Wilde and agreed to put on his play . Alexander began his usual meticulous preparations , interrogating the author on each line and planning stage movements with a toy theatre . In the course of these rehearsals Alexander asked Wilde to shorten the play from four acts to three . Wilde agreed and combined elements of the second and third acts . The largest cut was the removal of the character of Mr. <unk> , a solicitor who comes from London to arrest the profligate " Ernest " ( i.e. , Jack ) for his unpaid dining bills . Algernon , who is posing as " Ernest " , will be led away to Holloway Jail unless he settles his accounts immediately . Jack finally agrees to pay for Ernest , everyone thinking that it is Algernon 's bill when in fact it is his own . The four @-@ act version was first played on the radio in a BBC production and is still sometimes performed . Peter Raby argues that the three @-@ act structure is more effective , and that the shorter original text is more theatrically resonant than the expanded published edition .
= = Productions = =
= = = Premiere = = =
The play was first produced at the St James 's Theatre on Valentine 's Day 1895 . It was freezing cold but Wilde arrived dressed in " florid sobriety " , wearing a green carnation . The audience , according to one report , " included many members of the great and good , former cabinet ministers and privy councillors , as well as actors , writers , academics , and enthusiasts " . Allan Aynesworth , who played Algernon Moncrieff , recalled to Hesketh Pearson that " In my fifty @-@ three years of acting , I never remember a greater triumph than [ that ] first night " . Aynesworth was himself " debonair and stylish " , and Alexander , who played Jack Worthing , " demure " .
The cast was :
John Worthing , J.P. — George Alexander
Algernon Moncrieff — Allan Aynesworth
Rev. Canon Chasuble , D.D. — H. H. Vincent
Merriman — Frank Dyall
Lane — F. Kinsey <unk>
Lady Bracknell — Rose <unk>
Hon. Gwendolen Fairfax — Irene Vanbrugh
Cecily Cardew — Evelyn Millard
Miss Prism — Mrs. George <unk>
The Marquess of Queensberry , the father of Wilde 's lover Lord Alfred Douglas ( who was on holiday in Algiers at the time ) , had planned to disrupt the play by throwing a bouquet of rotten vegetables at the playwright when he took his bow at the end of the show . Wilde and Alexander learned of the plan , and the latter cancelled Queensberry 's ticket and arranged for policemen to bar his entrance . Nevertheless , he continued harassing Wilde , who eventually launched a private prosecution against the peer for criminal libel , triggering a series of trials ending in Wilde 's imprisonment for gross indecency . Alexander tried , unsuccessfully , to save the production by removing Wilde 's name from the billing , but the play had to close after only 86 performances .
The play 's original Broadway production opened at the Empire Theatre on 22 April 1895 , but closed after sixteen performances . Its cast included William Faversham as Algy , Henry Miller as Jack , Viola Allen as Gwendolen , and Ida Vernon as Lady Bracknell . The Australian premiere was in Melbourne on 10 August 1895 , presented by Dion Boucicault , Jr. and Robert Brough , and the play was an immediate success . Wilde 's downfall in England did not affect the popularity of his plays in Australia .
= = = Critical reception = = =
In contrast to much theatre of the time , The Importance of Being Earnest 's light plot does not tackle serious social and political issues , something of which contemporary reviewers were wary . Though unsure of Wilde 's seriousness as a dramatist , they recognised the play 's cleverness , humour and popularity with audiences . George Bernard Shaw , for example , reviewed the play in the Saturday Review , arguing that comedy should touch as well as amuse , " I go to the theatre to be moved to laughter . " Later in a letter he said , the play , though " extremely funny " , was Wilde 's " first really heartless [ one ] " . In The World , William Archer wrote that he had enjoyed watching the play but found it to be empty of meaning , " What can a poor critic do with a play which raises no principle , whether of art or morals , creates its own canons and conventions , and is nothing but an absolutely wilful expression of an irrepressibly witty personality ? "
In The Speaker , A. B. Walkley admired the play and was one of few to see it as the culmination of Wilde 's dramatic career . He denied the term " farce " was derogatory , or even lacking in seriousness , and said " It is of nonsense all compact , and better nonsense , I think , our stage has not seen . " H. G. Wells , in an unsigned review for the Pall Mall Gazette , called Earnest one of the freshest comedies of the year , saying " More humorous dealing with theatrical conventions it would be difficult to imagine . " He also questioned whether people would fully see its message , " ... how Serious People will take this Trivial Comedy intended for their learning remains to be seen . No doubt seriously . " The play was so light @-@ hearted that many reviewers compared it to comic opera rather than drama . W. H. Auden later called it " a pure verbal opera " , and The Times commented , " The story is almost too preposterous to go without music . " Mary McCarthy , in Sights and Spectacles ( 1959 ) , however , and despite thinking the play extremely funny , would call it " a ferocious idyll " ; " depravity is the hero and the only character . "
The Importance of Being Earnest is Wilde 's most popular work and is continually revived . Max Beerbohm called the play Wilde 's " finest , most undeniably his own " , saying that in his other comedies — Lady Windermere 's Fan , A Woman of No Importance and An Ideal Husband — the plot , following the manner of Victorien Sardou , is unrelated to the theme of the work , while in Earnest the story is " dissolved " into the form of the play .
= = = Revivals = = =
Until after Wilde 's death in 1900 his name remained disgraced , and few discussed , let alone performed , his work in Britain . Alexander revived The Importance in a small theatre in Notting Hill , outside the West End , in 1901 ; in the same year he presented the piece on tour , playing Jack Worthing with a cast including the young Lilian Braithwaite as Cecily . The play returned to the West End when Alexander presented a revival at the St James 's in 1902 . Broadway revivals were mounted in 1902 and again in 1910 , each production running for six weeks .
A collected edition of Wilde 's works , published in 1908 and edited by Robert Ross , helped to restore his reputation as an author . Alexander presented another revival of The Importance at the St James 's in 1909 , when he and Aynesworth reprised their original roles ; the revival ran for 316 performances . Max Beerbohm said that the play was sure to become a classic of the English repertory , and that its humour was as fresh then as when it had been written , adding that the actors had " worn as well as the play " .
For a 1913 revival at the same theatre the young actors Gerald Ames and A. E. Matthews succeeded the creators as Jack and Algy . John <unk> as Jack and Margaret Scudamore as Lady Bracknell headed the cast in a 1923 production at the Haymarket Theatre . Many revivals in the first decades of the 20th century treated " the present " as the current year . It was not until the 1920s that the case for 1890s costumes was established ; as a critic in The Manchester Guardian put it , " Thirty years on , one begins to feel that Wilde should be done in the costume of his period — that his wit today needs the backing of the atmosphere that gave it life and truth . … Wilde 's glittering and complex verbal felicities go ill with the shingle and the short skirt . "
In Sir Nigel Playfair 's 1930 production at the Lyric , Hammersmith , John Gielgud played Jack to the Lady Bracknell of his aunt , Mabel Terry @-@ Lewis . Gielgud produced and starred in a production at the Globe ( now the Gielgud ) Theatre in 1939 , in a cast that included Edith Evans as Lady Bracknell , Joyce Carey as Gwendolen , Angela Baddeley as Cecily and Margaret Rutherford as Miss Prism . The Times considered the production the best since the original , and praised it for its fidelity to Wilde 's conception , its " airy , responsive ball @-@ playing quality . " Later in the same year Gielgud presented the work again , with Jack Hawkins as Algy , Gwen Ffrangcon @-@ Davies as Gwendolen and Peggy Ashcroft as Cecily , with Evans and Rutherford in their previous roles . The production was presented in several seasons during and after the Second World War , with mostly the same main players . During a 1946 season at the Haymarket the King and Queen attended a performance , which , as the journalist Geoffrey Wheatcroft put it , gave the play " a final accolade of respectability . " The production toured North America , and was successfully staged on Broadway in 1947 .
As Wilde 's work came to be read and performed again , it was The Importance of Being Earnest that received the most productions . By the time of its centenary the journalist Mark Lawson described it as " the second most known and quoted play in English after Hamlet . "
For Sir Peter Hall 's 1982 production at the National Theatre the cast included Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell , Martin Jarvis as Jack , Nigel Havers as Algy , Zoë Wanamaker as Gwendolen and Anna Massey as Miss Prism . Nicholas Hytner 's 1993 production at the Aldwych Theatre , starring Maggie Smith , had occasional references to the supposed gay subtext .
In 2005 the Abbey Theatre , Dublin , produced the play with an all @-@ male cast ; it also featured Wilde as a character — the play opens with him drinking in a Parisian café , dreaming of his play . The Melbourne Theatre Company staged a production in December 2011 with Geoffrey Rush as Lady Bracknell .
In 2011 the Roundabout Theatre Company produced a Broadway revival based on the 2009 Stratford Shakespeare Festival production featuring Brian Bedford as director and as Lady Bracknell . It opened at the American Airlines Theatre on 13 January and ran until 3 July 2011 . The cast also included Dana Ivey as Miss Prism , Paxton Whitehead as Canon Chasuble , Santino Fontana as Algernon , Paul O 'Brien as Lane , Charlotte Parry as Cecily , David <unk> as Jack and Sara Topham as Gwendolen . It was nominated for three Tony Awards .
The play was also presented internationally , in Singapore , in October 2004 , by the British Theatre Playhouse , and the same company brought it to London 's Greenwich Theatre in April 2005 .
= = Synopsis = =
The play is set in " The Present " ( i.e. 1895 ) .
= = = Act I = = =
Algernon Moncrieff 's flat in Half Moon Street , W
The play opens with Algernon Moncrieff , an idle young gentleman , receiving his best friend , John Worthing , whom he knows as Ernest . Ernest has come from the country to propose to Algernon 's cousin , Gwendolen Fairfax . Algernon , however , refuses his consent until Ernest explains why his cigarette case bears the inscription , " From little Cecily , with her fondest love to her dear Uncle Jack . " ' Ernest ' is forced to admit to living a double life . In the country , he assumes a serious attitude for the benefit of his young ward , the heiress Cecily Cardew , and goes by the name of John ( or , as a nickname , Jack ) , while pretending that he must worry about a wastrel younger brother named Ernest in London . In the city , meanwhile , he assumes the identity of the libertine Ernest . Algernon confesses a similar deception : he pretends to have an invalid friend named Bunbury in the country , whom he can " visit " whenever he wishes to avoid an unwelcome social obligation . Jack refuses to tell Algernon the location of his country estate .
Gwendolen and her formidable mother Lady Bracknell now call on Algernon who distracts Lady Bracknell in another room while Jack proposes to Gwendolen . She accepts , but seems to love him very largely for his professed name of Ernest . Jack accordingly resolves to himself to be rechristened " Ernest " . Discovering them in this intimate exchange , Lady Bracknell interviews Jack as a prospective suitor . Horrified to learn that he was adopted after being discovered as a baby in a handbag at Victoria Station , she refuses him and forbids further contact with her daughter . Gwendolen , though , manages covertly to promise to him her undying love . As Jack gives her his address in the country , Algernon surreptitiously notes it on the cuff of his sleeve : Jack 's revelation of his pretty and wealthy young ward has motivated his friend to meet her .